Free Republic

North Korea's government is producing high-quality counterfeit $100 bills and is working with criminal groups in China to sell the fake U.S. money internationally, U.S. officials say. Some details of the production of what federal officials call "supernotes" were disclosed after arrests last month in several U.S. cities of people linked to a major Asian crime ring trafficking in fake money, arms, drugs and cigarettes. A senior Bush administration official said one of the 10 indictments in the case contains the first disclosure of the North Korean government's role in the counterfeiting.

President George W Bush has proposed doubling US aid to Africa over the next five years. He said this would happen if African leaders made a commitment to honest government and the rule of law. Outlining his priorities for the G8 summit next week, Mr Bush said the West now had an extraordinary opportunity to help end extreme poverty in Africa. But on the other main issue facing the summit - climate change - he gave no indication of a compromise. The president criticised those who opposed energy development and wanted to place restrictions upon it. "About two billion people...

Saddam invested one million dollars in Paul Martin-owned Cordex by Judi McLeod, Canadafreepress.com Friday, April 22, 2005 The Canadian company that Saddam Hussein invested a million dollars in belonged to the Prime Minister of Canada, canadafreepress.com has discovered. Cordex Petroleum Inc., launched with Saddam’s million by Prime Minister Paul Martin’s mentor Maurice Strong’s son Fred Strong, is listed among Martin’s assets to the Federal Ethics committee on November 4, 2003. Among Martin’s Public Declaration of Declarable Assets are: "The Canada Steamship Lines Group Inc. (Montreal, Canada) 100 percent owned"; "Canada Steamship Lines Inc. (Montreal, Canada) 100 percent owned"–Cordex Petroleums Inc....

Friday, December 31, 2004 Social Security can't be savedPosted: December 31, 20041:00 a.m. Eastern By Devvy Kidd © 2004 WorldNetDaily.com There is a lot of buzz these days about "saving" Social Security. For decades, presidents have been feeding the American people the same old drivel about saving Social Security, the "sacred cow" of politics. For the past 40 years, presidents have declared their intention to save and reform Social Security, i.e., Bill Clinton's State of the Union addresses always carried practically the same sentences: "... we must agree to a bipartisan process to preserve (save) Social Security" (1997); "... we must save...

Presidential candidate John Kerry can count on the support of at least one group of Vietnam Veterans – and they're still in Vietnam. Following Kerry's denunciation of the ad by Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, criticizing him for exaggerating his war record, a group of former U.S. soldiers gathered in Hanoi to express their support for Kerry and to call President Bush a "draft dodger" for his service in the Texas Air National Guard during the war. And they were selling T-shirts to tourists to raise money for Kerry's campaign. The $5 shirts sport a picture of President Bush with...

I have created a public register of "bump lists" here on Free Republic. I define a bump list as a name listed in the "To" field used to index articles. Free Republic Bump List Register

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A federal probe of Coca-Cola Co. has intensified as a federal grand jury was scheduled and regulators subpoenaed employees, The Wall Street Journal said on Monday. The grand jury will begin to hear testimony in the case around May 25, the Journal said, citing people familiar with the probe. The U.S. attorney's office and the Securities and Exchange Commission are examining whether Coca-Cola overshipped drink concentrate to distributors in some markets including Japan -- called "channel-stuffing" -- thereby possibly inflating financial results. Three former finance officials of the world's largest soft drink maker have told federal...

With a cast of characters including a former prime minister, some of the richest executives in France and Germany, Paris' biggest-ever corporate crime trial continued this week with 37 defendants in the dock. France's largest-ever corporate corruption trial resumed in Paris this week with more drama than your average Mexican soap opera. The case offered further tales of illicit backroom dealing, a €5 million divorce settlement tab picked up by French taxpayers and allegations that a former French prime minister accepted bribes in connection with a string of acquisitions made by the state-owned French oil conglomerate Elf Aquitane in the...

Threat of switch to Euro currency inspired war April 18, 2003 Dear Editor,Oil has been traded with U.S. dollars since 1971. Other countries must stockpile dollars to be able to purchase oil, which gives America the dominant economy. The only economic bloc to contest America's power is the European Union. Yet, the EU still has to hoard dollars to buy oil, making the Euro's power limited indeed.Iraq switched to the Euro in 1999. Of course, America didn't take this seriously, since the Euro was relatively weak. However, within two years the Euro was gaining on the dollar. Venezuela also has...

We live in a global world – a world in which all of the walls or barriers between countries have been effectively torn down. In 1945, the political walls were torn down when the United Nations was birthed as each country ceded sovereignty to a global organization. In 1980, the Monetary Deregulation Act was passed, which made it legal for Americans to invest overseas. At the same time, the Group of Seven developed countries passed similar laws beginning the integration of currencies, securities, money and investments. Now, all the nations of the world effectively invest in each others country. In...

<p>ROME, May 13 (UPI) -- Soaring national debt in Italy, pre-election tax cuts in France and a stagnant German economy are threatening to bust the European "stability pact" on reducing budget deficits, and dangerously jeopardizing the credibility of the euro currency.</p>

Friday, 3 May, 2002, 13:21 GMT 14:21 UK Air Miles 'threaten dollar's dominance'Air Miles currently in circulation are said to be worth $500 billion - making them the second biggest "currency" after the dollar.  Air Miles facts American Airlines set up first airline reward scheme 21 years ago, called the "Advantage Travel Programme" "Air Miles" originates from the UK 13 years ago Name now franchised to third parties, including British Airways who has owned the UK Air Miles operation since 1994 Source: Air Miles UK At its current rate of growth the stock of miles could overtake the dollar within...

US dollar hegemony has got to go By Henry C K Liu There is an economics-textbook myth that foreign-exchange rates are determined by supply and demand based on market fundamentals. Economics tends to dismiss socio-political factors that shape market fundamentals that affect supply and demand. The current international finance architecture is based on the US dollar as the dominant reserve currency, which now accounts for 68 percent of global currency reserves, up from 51 percent a decade ago. Yet in 2000, the US share of global exports (US$781.1 billon out of a world total of $6.2 trillion) was only 12.3...

The email came in from a friend in Eugene. Bear in mind that oil companies are no more greedy than you are. (Have you ever turned down a raise?) Neither are they stupid. They know the basic rules of supply and demand, and so are fully aware that $3.00 a gallon gas will cost them income, not increase it. The prime guilt here must be laid at the doorstep of government policy, including taxation, and decades of liberal lockdowns on exploration and development in North America. The idea that an oil company would like to sell less gasoline is ridiculous....

APRIL 8, 2002 INTERNATIONAL -- INT'L COVER STORY How Much Is China Cooking Its Numbers? Growth may be wildly overstated. That could mean more social unrest For the past decade, China's gravity-defying economic performance has been the envy of the rest of the world. Growth has bobbed along at 7% or 8% even as expansion in the West was dropping toward zero. All the while, hard-core skeptics argued that China's numbers are as cooked as a pot of rice--and that the country's growth has been far less miraculous than official figures suggest. Ditto for trade and foreign-investment data. If...

BRUSSELS, March 22 The European Union (news - web sites) has drawn up a list of imports from the United States, worth about $2.1 billion annually, to penalize in retaliation for the Bush administration's recent imposition of tariffs of up to 30 percent on some imported steel. American steel, textiles and citrus fruit are among the items that would face punitive duties, officials said. The European Union has threatened sanctions if the United States does not agree to pay compensation for its measures to protect the struggling American steel industry. Under World Trade Organization (news - web sites) rules, the...

In all countries, globalisation can be a cruel discipline. It destroys as it creates. It may produce #147;the greatest happiness of the greatest number#148;, but it is natural for communities to fight for their own survival, particularly in their home markets. We should have some sympathy for the American steelworkers, who are losing their jobs not for lack of skill but as a consequence of distant financial forces which have little to do with them. The United States steel tariffs look like an ordinary trade issue, disturbing no doubt, indeed causing serious international protest, but self-contained and relatively simple. In...

President Bush's decision to impose substantial tariffs on a wide range of steel imports is disappointing and troubling. Under heavy pressure from domestic steel producers and steelworkers' unions, President Bush ordered tariffs ranging from 8 percent to 30 percent on foreign steel. In seeking to justify his action, he curiously invoked the language of free trade, saying, "We're a free-trade nation, and in order to remain a free-trading nation, we must enforce the law. That's exactly what I did." Honestly, I don't understand anything about that statement, since there was nothing "free-trade" about it, nor is there any law ...

THE FEDERAL RESERVE SYSTEM: A FATAL PARASITE ON THE AMERICAN BODY POLITIC by Dr. Edwin Vieira, Jr. Forward Dr. Edwin Vieira, Jr., has condensed into this Monograph the substance of addresses he has given to small groups that represent a cross-section of American citizens concerned with fundamental monetary and banking reform. Dr. Vieira's purpose is to present an analysis of the Federal Reserve System, its fiat paper currency, and &quot;fractional-reserve&quot; banking that infrequently, if ever, appears in the popular press, in the media, in the discourse of legislators or political candidates, or (worse yet) in the nation's schools. This ...

Did you know your hard-earned tax dollars are frequently — routinely — given away by the billions without so much as a vote in Congress? Here's an example of the way it works, as described in Bob Woodward's otherwise worthless book, "Maestro: Greenspan's Fed and the American Boom." Partly as a favor to President Clinton, worried in his first term about a crash in the Mexican economy that could jeopardize the appearance of the NAFTA "partnership," Bear Stearns chief economist Wayne Angell, a former Fed governor, came up with an idea for a massive transfer of wealth from America ...